


Mrs Esposito demands to know what is going on

by StrawberryLane



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Misunderstandings, Mrs Esposito's rules, No men allowed, POV Female Character, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 16:52:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9334145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Mrs Esposito would really like to know why the Goldstein sisters thought they would be able to sneak not one, not two, not three, but four different men into her house unnoticed. On the same night, no less.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here is yet another outsider point of view, because I really like them. 
> 
> Extra points if you spot the Princess Bride reference!

Mrs Esposito considers herself a fairly decent landlady. Her tenants get entire apartments and are allowed to decorate them however they want, not just small sized rooms with no chance to actually change anything. She allows pets, and her tenants can live their own lives however much they want, Mrs Eposito doesn't care. Except — Except she's got one rule. There will be absolutely no men in her building. No man can step a foot over her threshold without her noticing — not even the doctor. All her tenants abide this rule carefully, because it's not that much of a hassle, really. They can see whoever they want outside of the house, as long as they don't bring the fella inside.

There's been a few fights and arguments over the years — the entire reason for the rule in the first place was Angelica Bassets bringing home her dockyard working drunk of a boyfriend 15 years ago. A right brute he was, violent to anyone and everyone, his girlfriend included. The whole ordeal ended with Angelica Bassets dead from an injury to the head after a particularly nasty fight between the couple. The boyfriend died two years later, early on in the war, having gone over to fight on Britain's side. Their daughter, only two years old, ended up in an orphanage, only to be adopted by that crazy lady Mary Lou Barebone a few years later.

It was an all around sad time in Mrs Esposito's life.

Her current tenants, Tina and Queenie Goldstein have always followed her no men allowed rule to a tee, until one dark December night in 1926.

How they thought they could get four different men inside without Mrs Esposito noticing is beyond her.

First, there's Tina. The young woman calls out to let Mrs Esposito know she's alone, except Mrs Esposito knows she isn't, because she can see them standing on the stairs from where she's sitting. One of them is a redhead with a blue coat. He's clutching a big suitcase tightly to his chest, trying to move as quietly as possible. The other is another young man, younger than Tina. His hair is black, cut into a bowl cut and he's hunching over, trying to make himself smaller. He looks familiar in some way Mrs Esposito thinks. He's much better at moving quietly than the redhead, she thinks. She watches as the trio moves up the stairs, out of her sight.

Not even half an hour later, Queenie arrives home. She calls out a cheery, "Good evening, Mrs Esposito!" as she walks quickly up the stairs. Mrs Esposito has already turned her attention back towards her daily crossword when she realizes that Queenie should have been upstairs by now, but she can still hear the sound of steps against the steps of the stairs. And they sound heavier than what Queenie's steps usually do.

Mrs Esposito quickly looks out into the hallway and has her worst suspicions confirmed. There are two men trying to sneak up the stairs in her building! Two more men on the same night!

One of them has brown hair, and a dark brown suit. The other, also with brown hair, wears a long, dark blue coat that swishes around his legs as he walks. It looks expensive. Has Queenie Goldstein found herself a rich man?

Mrs Esposito watches as the other trio of the night make their way up the stairs and out of her sight. The door to the Goldstein apartment falls shut behind them with a click.

What follows for Mrs Esposito is two hours of plain boredom. She's done her crossword, finished knitting a jumper as a birthday gift to her niece and prepared her nightly cup of tea, vowing to stay up until the men actually leave so that she can read the sisters the riot act for disrespecting the rules, when she hears a bloodcurdling scream.

She jumps in the air, her heart feeling like it's going to burst out of her chest and drops her teacup to the floor, where it shatters, drowning her poor feet in scolding hot tea.

Before she can decide against it and simply call the police, she grabs her broom from the closet and begins a slow journey up the stairs.

It's quiet up on the second floor and nothing seems out of ordinary. Her other tenants, if they're home, doesn't seem to have noticed the scream or been disturbed by it, because no one is sticking their head out demanding to know what's going on.

Mrs Esposito knocks on the door to the Goldstein sisters apartment, holding her broom in what she hopes is a casual way. It's quiet on the other side of the door, until it's suddenly wrenched open just as Mrs Esposito raises her fist to knock again.

It's Tina that greets her, dressed in a nightgown, holding a cup of tea – exactly like the one Mrs Esposito just dropped all over her own feet.

"Is everything all right?" Mrs Esposito asks, frowning slightly. She wasn't imagining things, was she? Her son-in-law, Albert, is always telling her she's getting older, the annoying prick that he is, but she knows she's not old yet. Sure, her eyesight is slowly going, and she's not hearing as good as she did a few years ago, but has she really started making things up like some old crazy lady?

"Of course, why wouldn't it be?" Tina replies. "Are you all right, Mrs Esposito?" she adds, eying the broom Mrs Esposito is holding with suspicion.

"What? Oh yes, dear. I was sure I heard something, but oh well. I must just be tired then," Mrs Esposito replies, frowning even harder. She quickly bids the young woman a good night, gripping the broom tightly as she makes her way downstairs to her own apartment.

She's well on her way of being asleep when she hears another scream from upstairs. She's swept up the shards of the cup she dropped, made herself a new cup of tea, read a few pages in her book and gone to bed, all without any incidents. At the sound of the scream she bolts upright in the bed and nearly falls to the floor in her haste to get out of it. She grabs her broom and is halfway up the stairs before she remembers she's in her flowery nightgown and night cap slightly askew on her head. Well, they're just going to have to deal with that, she thinks, soldiering on.

This time she knows she didn't just hear the screaming in her head, because Margaret Wood is sticking her head out of her door, curiosity clear on her face. Another scream seem to echo around them as Mrs Esposito uses her broom to pound on the door to the Goldstein sisters' apartment.

The screaming abruptly stops, mid-scream and then there's silence. Mrs Esposito, dread filling her entire body, hesitantly puts her hand on the doorknob, waiting a beat before forcing the door open, broom held high, ready to bring the handle down on whatever head is standing closest.

The scene that meets her, though, gives her a slight pause.

Tina and Queenie Goldstein are standing on either side of their kitchen table. The redheaded man is standing at the foot of it, holding a stick in the air. The fancy looking gentleman with the dark blue coat is standing at the head of the kitchen table, likewise holding a stick in the air.

To the side, closer to the kitchen sink, the man in the brown suit is visibly restraining the familiar young man with black hair. The young man is clearly trying to break free from the hold, clawing at the older man's arms and hands, anywhere he can reach, really. He's sobbing, tears streaming down his face in a steady flow.

What horrifies Mrs Esposito the most is the body of the young girl that is laying on the kitchen table, restrained from moving by Tina and Queenie. She's thrashing back and forth, eyes rolling back in her head. Her mouth is open in a silent scream, her strawberry blonde hair darkening with sweat and pushed back, away from her face. The two men continues to point them towards the poor girl, something that looks like a clear jet of water continuously making its way from the sticks straight into the girl's chest.

With yet another pang of dread Mrs Esposito realizes who the girl is; Chastity Barebone, the daughter of Angelica Bassets and her good for nothing boyfriend. The little girl whose parents died before she was barley two years old. The girl who got adopted by Mary Lou Barebone. Which would explain why Mrs Esposito recognizes the young man who's still trying to get out of the hold the man wearing a brown suit has on him. She's seen them together before, at those abominable meetings for that so called church Mary Lou Barebone fronted. The young man is another one of the woman's adopted children.

And they're forcing him to watch as they torture his sister.

Mrs Esposito does the first thing she thinks off: she sprints forward and, with all her might, brings down the handle of her broom at the head of the redheaded man who yelps and dives out of her reach. She brings the broom around again, sweeping it around the table, forcing the fancy man and the two women to duck as to avoid being hit. Just as she's about to aim at the fancy gentleman again, because he's still pointing that weird stick towards Chastity, she hears someone shout "Petrificus Totalus!" and suddenly feels her arms and legs snap tightly against her body, her whole body feeling like it is freezing over. Unable to move, unable to keep her balance, she begins to fall backwards towards the floor. She sees, rather than actually feels, a pair of blue clad arms surround her, breaking her fall. She's lowered gently to the floor.

What is going on, she thinks as she tries to take in everything at once. Tina and Queenie are back at restraining Chastity on the table, the fancy man having resumed his work, whatever it is that he's actually doing. Chastity's brother is still sobbing, but much more quietly now, and he's stopped struggling.

"We should've done this in the suitcase," the fancy man grits out, clearly irritated at being interrupted.

"It made the animals agitated. It wouldn't have worked," the redheaded man mutters as he drags Mrs Esposito across the floor, leaving her near the door.

"What if it doesn't work anyway?" Tina asks, looking at the fancy gentleman, worriedly biting her lip.

"It will," the man forces out from between clenched teeth. "She's only mostly dead. That's different from being dead."

"Yes," the redheaded man agrees and Mrs Esposito notes he sounds British. "Being mostly dead means you're also slightly alive."

Just as the words leaves his mouth Chastity abruptly sits up on the table, not unlike the way Mrs Esposito sat up in her bed at the sound of Chastity, because it must have been her, screaming not even twenty minutes ago. Mrs Esposito is starting to severely regret actually getting out of bed at all.

Chastity screams and screams except there's no sound, so it looks more like she's sitting on the table mouth wide open for a few minutes before falling back down onto the table, unconscious.

"She's all right," Queenie says to Chastity's brother, who has started to try and break free once again. "She just needs some rest. Here, feel her pulse."

The man in the brown suit let's go of Chastity's brother, who quickly dries his tears on his sleeve before taking a hesitant step towards his sister. He takes her wrist in his hand, feeling for her pulse.

"What are you going to do with her?" The brown haired man asks, nodding towards Mrs Esposito.

Tina, after casting a quick look around the room, brings out a stick of her own from her pocket, before walking up to Mrs Esposito and crouching down.

”Obliviate."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it!


End file.
